Expanding the Community Conservation Connection

By Heather Mills, Agriculture Program Manager

We have been busy preparing for the next iteration of our Community Conservation Connection program. After a successful 5-year pilot program, the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners approved a 10-year Common Ground grant  for the  Conservancy to continue offering this innovative program. With this new grant, we are able to expand the opportunities and benefits with this innovative program. 

This unique program is available to Chaffee County agricultural landowners who operate an agricultural business such as raising cattle or hay production on their land. Program participants enter into an Agriculture Conservation Agreement with the Conservancy. In the agreements, the landowner acknowledges they will continue to operate their business, keep water rights tied to the land, and not develop the property. Participants in the pilot program were surprised how quickly the time went by while they just kept doing what they do, ranch. 

We are working diligently to re-enroll existing program participants and to bring new participants into the program. Agricultural landowners who meet the eligibility criteria can conserve their land in 5- or 10-year agreements and receive annual payments per acre. The program also offers landowners the opportunity to ‘test drive’ a conservation easement. Land already in a perpetual conservation easement is also eligible for the program with additional conservation practices, such as continued flood and sprinkler irrigation, installing escape routes in stock tanks for wildlife and conserving pollinator habitats. The pilot program protected 3,400 acres through the  5-year agreements. Our goal is to increase the protected acreage to 5,000 through the new agreements. 

Many of these properties are located along the Collegiate Peaks Scenic Byway, provide important wildlife habitat, and are under development pressures. These multigenerational ranchers, who have boots on the ground, working the land every day to keep their operation going, face immense pressure to call it quits and sell their land, and would make more money doing so than they do ranching. This program is designed to help conserve and improve these valuable lands, allow the landowner time to consider a perpetual easement or a succession plan, and keep Chaffee County ranchers in business doing the lifestyle they love.

If you are an agricultural landowner and would like more information about the Community Conservation Connection program, please reach out to Heather at heather@centralcoloradoconservancy.org or at 719-539-7700.